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Beyond Voting: How to Be a Super Citizen

FEE Eco-Schools (Green Campus) / Flickr

“There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” —Marshall McLuhanMcLuhan’s quote about the responsibility we all have as “crewmembers” of spaceship Earth could just as easily apply to our need to stay politically engaged in a democracy. When the health of our planet and communities is at stake, we can’t stay on the sidelines.

There are lots of ways to be an active citizen: voting, volunteering, starting or joining an advocacy organization, raising money for a cause you care about, protesting, writing letters to the newspaper, calling or visiting your representatives, attending a community or government meeting, running for office… the list goes on.

“But where do I start?” you might ask.

First, ask yourself what skills and resources you have to offer. Are you a social butterfly? Perhaps you’d like to canvas or staff a phonebank for a cause. Are you good with computers? Maybe you could train others or help set up a database for an organization that needs one.

Secondly, ask yourself what you care about. Below we’ve assembled some handy guides from EarthShare member organizations and others on environmental issues that could use an active citizen like you. Just click on the guides that match your interests to get started!

I care about...

...Stopping Plastic Pollution The Rise Above Plastics Activist Toolkit is a step by step guide to creating positive change in your community through reducing single-use plastics. It will help you establish a plastic bag ban or similar ordinance and it also offers insight on increasing awareness of plastic pollution issues through education and outreach. (Surfrider Foundation)

...Making My Community More Liveable and Safe for PedestriansThis “Transportation Toolkit,” is “a plain-language citizen’s guide to the government’s process for major infrastructure undertakings, and how to get involved. Along with approachable graphics and flowcharts, the kit goes over the basic timelines that road, rail, bridge, and aviation projects usually follow, crucial concepts, entities, and laws that inform those processes, and the best strategies to make citizen voices heard. Think of this as everything you wanted to know about transportation planning, but were afraid to ask.” (USDOT / CityLab)